Defamation

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Bangkok, July 31, 2015--Five journalists jailed on anti-state charges in Myanmar were released on Thursday in a presidential amnesty of nearly 7,000 prisoners, according to news reports. The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes the journalists' release but calls on Myanmar authorities to release all other journalists imprisoned in the country.

President Barack Obama is expected to address a range of topics when he arrives in Kenya tomorrow. The Kenyan government says it plans to discuss security and trade, while opposition parties and civil society want good governance and human rights added to the agenda, according to news reports. We hope the discussion includes the commitments to improve press freedom that the Kenyan government made to CPJ last week.

On July 15, we released our special report, "Broken Promises: How Kenya is failing to uphold its commitment to a free press," in Nairobi to a room full of more than 50 Kenyan and foreign journalists. The report found that a combination of legal and physical harassment, as well as concentration in media ownership, is making it increasingly difficult for journalists to work freely in Kenya.

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2. Media contend with lawsuits, restrictive bills, legal limbo

Instead of passing new legislation in keeping with the new constitution’s guarantees for freedom of the press, the government has introduced a series of laws that undermine self-regulation and allow for harsh fines and even jail terms for journalists who commit perceived transgressions.

Dear Prime Minister Prayuth: The Committee to Protect Journalists is concerned about the trial on Tuesday of two journalists who face up to seven years in prison if convicted on defamation and computer crime charges.

New York, July 6, 2015--Egyptian authorities arrested four journalists last week around the two-year anniversary of the ouster of President Mohamed Morsi, according to news reports and local press freedom groups.

Istanbul, June 26, 2015--The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the insult charges filed against a Turkish reporter and calls on Turkish authorities to drop them immediately. The charges against Canan Coşkun, a reporter for the daily newspaper Cumhuriyet, were first reported by the Turkish media on Wednesday.

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New York, June 25, 2015--The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the excessive damages imposed on Monday by a Moroccan court on a news website convicted of defamation and call on authorities to reverse the conviction on appeal.

"If we want our freedom, we have to fight for it," wrote blogger Roy Ngerng last year after he was sued for defamation by Singapore's prime minister. The case was sparked by a blog post in which Ngerng allegedly suggested Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong had misappropriated funds in a state pension system. In November, the court ruled in favor of the prime minister.

At the Lideta courthouse in Ethiopia's capital city, Addis Ababa, stands a statue of a blindfolded woman holding a set of scales in her outstretched hand--a universal symbol of justice, here cast in metal of pinkish gold and wearing thick braids in her hair.

The snow and freezing temperatures that struck Saudi Arabia unexpectedly in December 2013 were newsworthy in a desert kingdom better known for its extreme heat. But the fact that the ensuing power outages at a regional prison left prisoners without power or heat for nearly a week was apparently off-limits to reporters.